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Reddit General Manager Erik Martin on Violentacrez and the Gawker Bans

Last week, Reddit boiled over with rage when a Gawker article exposed the true identity of one of the social media site’s most

Image via CrunchBase

influential users, and as Gawker put it: “the biggest troll on the web.” The user, violentacrez, a programmer from a Dallas suburb, had moderated some of the largest subreddits on the site, as well as some of the most controversial – subreddits like “creepshots” or “jailbait,” where users uploaded pictures surreptitiously taken of young women. Other moderators, furious over the expose of one of their own by a website they had no love for to begin with, banned all Gawker domains from their turf, and Reddit entered into yet another tricky conversation about free speech and the internet.

I talked to Reddit general manager Erik Martin a little bit about the incident – while he and the other administrators didn’t have any direct hand in the Gawker bans, aside from a brief and, Martin says, accidental banning of the original article, he’s still watching the situation closely. He thinks that something about violentacrez’s story hit home with moderators, and they started banning Gawker domains out of fear for their own identities.

“Some of them felt that this was not journalism, this was witch hunting of someone that they didn’t agree with from a publication that they didn’t really consider journalistic. That’s not our stance as admins but a lot of these moderators, moderate subreddits that are bigger than most big websites,” he says. “They’re constantly under attack from people who don’t agree with them. And people say some really aggressive and scary things to them, and I think they are frustrated and worried that this sets a precedent.”

The issue of revealing real world identities became a problem in very different circumstances. For example, a user might have uploaded a video of someone getting beat up, and another user might try and find personal info on the attacker, sparking an outpouring of extra-legal aggression against someone who might have been completely misidentified. Now, Reddit admins strive to pull Facebook links, phone numbers, addresses and more off of the site.

This was a different problem though. The info was dug up, and vetted, by an off-site journalist, and it didn’t contain his address or phone number, just his real name and photo. That’s still a big deal – anonymity is one of the foundational principles behind the Reddit community, and prominent members can jealously guard their real identities. But, says Martin, that has its limits.

“Anonymity is important for a lot of reasons, but that doesn’t mean it’s above other rights that people affected might have,” says Martin. “It doesn’t mean that we have to protect or should protect people from themselves.”

Reddit is unlike any other major portal – it’s a neutral platform almost entirely run by volunteers, and that means that it ends up churning out both the best and worst of the internet on a daily basis. It’s a balancing act, and it doesn’t always fill you with confidence in humanity. But this incident is bringing to light some of the more unsavory elements of free speech, and the internet communities of the future should be paying attention to where things go from here.

“There’s a lot of content on Reddit that we’re not proud of or that we don’t support, or that doesn’t support our values or most users,” he says. “But we still find the right balance between things like safety and the law, and also being a free and open.”

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I’ve never been to the reddit site. After reading this article, I will be sure to never go there.

One item I found very interesting in the article: “Other moderators, furious over the expose of one of their own by a website they had no love for to begin with, banned all Gawker domains from their turf,”

LOL – they hide behind free speech, but ban links to an article that does not suit them. LOL

Bullies have not changed that much in my life time – despite the change in venues and media. Once revealed – they are usually sad little people with sad little lives.

I hope that all of the troll’s pics of kids are lifted and put in a search-able database. I hope that folks who find pics of their underage kids their can sue and make sure the troll ends his life living under a bridge.

reddit is basically a reflection of the internet. don’t be so closeminded in your dismissal of an amazing website.

check out this subreddit, for example:

askscience.reddit.com

Where mature professionals discuss the latest news, citing peer reviewed research and field all sorts of interesting questions.

Also, for your information, the Gawker ban was pretty much only for exposing personal information, which is against reddit policy. Bad things happen to people in real life when you publish their personal information online.

For you to simply read one negative review of an aggregation website like reddit, and throw the site as a whole is short sighted and a knee jerk reaction. You should know better.

Remember the old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover?” you did that right here.

Reddit truly is a reflection of the internet, where you can learn amazing things about science, history, or be completely disgusted and offended.

You aren’t naive enough to swear off the internet completely because the first website you visited you disliked, are you?